79 Wiyot and Yurok Light on Algonquian 'Sun' Paul Proulx Heatherton, Nova Scotia
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79 Wiyot and Yurok Light on Algonquian 'Sun' Paul Proulx Heatherton, Nova Scotia 0. The grammar of every language and protolanguage contains irregular formations which are archaic and can be explained only by reference to an earlier stage of the language. In Proto-Algonquian (PA) there are many such formations which will be fully explained only when Proto- Algic (Algonquian-Wiyot-Yurok) has been reconstructed in some detail, and the historical phonology of Pre-PA worked out. However, it is even now possible in some cases to reconstruct enough of the grammar of Proto-Algic to explain some irregularities in PA. An example of this is a type of causitive verb stem which is nominalized in the PA word for 'sun' . 1. Wiyot has a causitive -s_ (Teeter 1964 sec. 4.28) as in W kwaps- 'cover up' beside stative intransitive kwapt- 'be covered up', where Teeter (personal communication) explains ^1 as an abstract final. Similarly, there are many Yurok pairs such as yekwohs- 'fold' beside yekwon- 'be folded', where ^n_ is a common abstract final of stative verbs, and Berman (personal communication) explains the h in the causitive stem as an automatic insertion of Pre- Yurok in this environment. Thus in both languages, the replacement of the abstract final of a stative intransitive verb by -s makes it a transitive causitive. Wiyot and Yurok s_ correspond to PA *9_, e.g., W basad, PA *me9eni 'nipple', and Y me sen 'arm', PA *me9enc'yi 'hand'. W b and d respectively alternate with m and n, and PA *-(e)5y 'body, protruding body part, belly' is common in verbs (extended with *e_^ to *-ecye:). It is therefore plausible that causitive - (V) s in Wiyot and Yurok—where V is a variable link vowel—could have a counterpart *-(V)9 in Algonquian, and one indeed encounters such a final in many transitive animate (TA) verbs. Moreover, some of these TA stems are semantically causitives paired with stative intransitives, e.g., *kya:9- TA 'hide' beside *kya:swi- AI 'be hidden'. Synchronically, *-(V)9 is an abstract TA final in PA, and is usually not causitive. But this is easy to explain. Wiyot and Yurok have two main classes of verb stems, transitive and intransitive. PA, which has an animate/ inanimate gender system lacking in the other two languages, divides its verb stems into four classes: intransitives are AI (animate intransitive) when they have an animate subject, and II (inanimate intransitive) when they have an inanimate subject; transitives are generally TA (transitive animate) when they have an animate object, and psT (pseudotransitive) otherwise. Most psT stems are TI (transitive inanimate) and are paired with TA stems. 80 There is no evidence that the gender system of PA (and the verb-stem classification that depends on it) date back to Proto-Algic. If it does not, the contrast between TA and TI finals is an Algonquian innovation. Since causitives are typically transitive verbs with animate (especially human) objectives, the causitive final could readily be extended to use as an abstract TA final when the gender contrast developed in verb stems. 2. When Mary Haas 1967 reconstructed four by-forms of the Algonquian word for 'sun', and two of the presumably related word for 'day', she aroused an interest in these words which has continued ever since (see Hamp 1973, Hewson 1974, Aubin 1975, Siebert 1975, and Hamp 1979). In his second article, Hamp has argued that only PA *ki:gekwi 'day' and *ki:£oq9wa 'sun' are necessary. Besides *ki:sekwi 'day' PA has *ki:£ekat-, a stative II verb meaning 'be day' and having the abstract final *-at. By known morphological rules we can thus construct such forms as Pre-PA *ki:§ek-9- 'cause to be day', and the agent noun *ki:gek-9-wa 'the one who causes it to be day'. If we can explain how *q and *o respectively replace *k and *e, we have a good etymology for 'sun'. Reduplication, although it is irregular, provides at least suggestive evidence that in fact PA *p, *k, and *kw before a vowel alternate to PA *q before an obstruent. Examples are *si:qsi:pa 'duck' and *sa:qsa:ke:wa 'herron, crane' (see Cowan 1972 on reduplication in bird names), and perhaps Sh §aqSa:kw- 'break bones' (beside *sekw- 'crush', see Siebert 1975 no. 62). Better evidence is from Algonquian derivation and from Algonquian/Yurok comparisons. An example of the former is PA *napiwa 'she sits' (with the AI final *-i 'stative') versus *aqte:wi 'it sets' (with the II final *~te:)• More to our point are PA *neq9w- (with the post- radical increment *-w) and Y nahks- 'three', and PA *lo:weq9- (in M no:weqn-) and Y ro:kws- 'wind blows'. Y 1 regularly alternates with r, Yurok evidently contracts the VwV sequence, and Y s corresponds to PA *9 (as we have seen above) . — There remains only to explain how Pre-PA *ki:geq9wa could have become *ki:Soq9wa, and here too Algonquian/Yurok comparisons are useful. The imperative plural suffix is PA *-okwe, Y -ekw after stems ending in a consonant, and there is PA *e:toki, Y 'elekw 'I wonder if (where the correspondence between PA *t and Y 1 is well established by such cognate sets as Y kemol-, PA *kemo:t- 'steal') ' Algonquian k is always rounded af ter~^7~IHd I presume that ok and okw are really noncontrastive In these languages. What these examples suggest is that Algonquian rounded Proto-Algic *e in a penultimate syllable when the following consonantism ended in w (and the final vowel is short). ^Tin*^ W*S ^versible in a terminal inflectional suffix 1 noun\IZ f^' htu C°Uld bS anal°9ically leveled out of ^Jlfform™ s o%8f ^?'sun locatives),'(whe wer"e th rarelf .unrounde yPresumabl usedd, voweany d thllevelin ewoul plurad gbl e o fanpreserve dth elocativ singulad ien r 81 did not take place. It is also likely that leveling was dialectal in some cases, and that there were thus some PA doublets like *ki:gekwi/*ki:gokwi 'day' (both reconstructed by Haas 1967) and *axkehkwa/*axkohkwa 'kettle' (where Fox, Shawnee*e).2 , and Penobscot attest *o, and the other languages' NOTES 1 There are difficulties in reconstrucing the first and last vowels of *e:toki, but the crucial one seems secure: F ye:tok 'perhaps' (deliberate speech), F e:toke 'surely' (casual speech, Voorhis 1971:75), C e:toke: 'for all I know', C e:tokwe: 'I guess' (Wolfart 1973:85), M netok 'I wonder whether' (with the prefix n- 'I'), Mi atoki 'wonder', Mc etuk 'maybe'. The second vowel in 0 i:tik 'perhaps' has been reshaped by analogy with 0 e:ntakwa 'it seems so' and e:ntakwe:n 'I wonder if it's so'. F -e and C -e: are the subjunctive suffix and probably secondary. Initial Mi a is unexplained, as in initial *y in Fox and Ojibwa. 2 Although I have reconstructed PA *ki:§oq9wa 'sun' and *-okwe 'imperative plural', there is a possibility that *we should be reconstructed for *o in both. Hamp 1979 gives *ki:^weq9wa as an alternate reconstruction for the former, and Aubin (personal communication) interprets Roger Williams' recording of the word in Narragansett as confirming *we. Siebert 1975:422 sets up *we rather than *o in the imperative plural suffix (though the daughter languages he cites all have o). If they are correct, Pre-PA *e has been replaced by PA *we in both cases, and most likely in the other instances of apparent rounding we have examined. In terms of prior probabilities, a rounding of e to o when w follows is much more likely than the insertion of a second w before the e. In fact, it is hard to believe that w-insertion could be a regular sound-change at all (as opposed to an isolated instance of distant assimilation). If, as seems likely, *e was indeed rounded in the words in question, and if this rounded vowel was ultimately interpreted as phonemic *we, then it seems quite probably that phonetic *o was not in contrast with *we (at least in penultimate syllables) in PA. Rather, phonetic *o could have been an optional pronunciation of phonemic *we (at least in this position), and thus a rounded *e could be interpreted as *we. This would also explaiREFERENCEn whyS the shift from *we to o is so widespread in the daughter languages. AUBIN, George 1975 More on Narragansett Keesuckquand. UAL 41.239-40. 82 BLOOMFIELD, Leonard 1946 Algonquian. Linguistic structures of Native America. 85-12 9. Viking Fund Publication in Anthropology 6. COWAN, William 1972 Reduplicated bird names in Algonquian. IJAL 38:229-231. HAAS, Mary 1958 Algonkian-Ritwan: the end of a controversy. IJAL 24:159-173. 1967 The Proto-Algonquian word for 'sun'. National Museum of Canada Bulletin 214:60-66. HAMP, Eric 1973 More light on PA 'sun'. IJAL 40:256-257. 1979 Methodological light from Proto-Algonquian 'sun'. Contributions to Canadian Linguistics. Canadian Ethnology Service Paper no. 50, National Museum of Man Mercury series. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada. HEWSON, John 1974 The Algonquian word for 'sun'. IJAL 40:256-257. ROBINS, R.H. 1958 The Yurok language. UCPL 15. SIEBERT, Frank 1975 Resurrecting Virginia Algonquian from the dead. James M. Crawford, (ed.), Studies in southeastern Indian languages. 285-453. Athens: University of Georgia Press. TEETER, Karl 1964 The Wiyot language. UCPL 37. VOORHIS, Paul 1971 New notes on the Mesquakie (Fox) language. IJAL 37:63-76. 1974 Introduction to the Kickapoo language. Language science monographs 13.